Sometimes I hear an argument, or maybe it’s more of a shibboleth; anyway, it runs: Mental health, or lack thereof, reflects the times. In precarious times like these, precarious mental health is basically symptomatic of a clear-eyed view of the world. To which I supply the corollary: If so, then psychology, the science of mental health and illness, must offer a privileged standpoint from which to understand this world and its sufferers–and then to help if we may by availing ourselves of the things that we’ve been studying here, video games and literature. Might games and play, read in the light of the literary tradition, offer something to the psychologist, and to the depressed, anxious, or otherwise world-bearing player?
Continue reading “Video Game Psychology in Review”Jacob’s Ladder – Video Essay Review: Jacob Geller
Where to begin reviewing great work in game studies? For the listeners, it’s Game Studies Study Buddies. For the watchers–for the win–it has to be the video essays of Jacob Geller.
The Grasshopper and Cricket – Podcast Review: Game Studies Study Buddies
The poetry of earth is ceasing never. Same goes for the discourse of games. It’s never dead. Long may it live! The fun of playing and thinking, writing and reading about video games; the critiques on more general topics opened up thereby; the further discussion that in turn entails… chef’s kiss. Influential texts in game studies, promising new releases, and wild cards–and the meta-discourse. The nitty-gritty, the airy-fairy. Philosophical presuppositions. Utopian politics and metaphysical claims. The poetry of earth and the poverty of spirit–it’s all there in your podcast feed with Games Studies Study Buddies, which releases new episodes monthly.
As Jacotot noted long ago, but not so long ago as Plato, everything is in everything. But let’s not just quote dead white men. Let’s break the canon open and dismantle this. I mean, Universal Teaching: Mother Tongue and Meno are pretty good, but maybe Lauren Hill says it best in her Miseducation:
After winter must come spring
Everything is everything
Long-awaited summer of classics, let me know what your vibe is.
Continue reading “The Grasshopper and Cricket – Podcast Review: Game Studies Study Buddies”
Video Game Academy 